单选题 .  Educators today are more and more often heard to say that computer literacy is absolutely necessary for college students. Many even argue that each incoming freshman should have permanent access to his or her own microcomputer. What advantages do computers offer the college students?
    Any student who has used a word processor will know one compelling reason to use a computer: to write papers. Although not all students feel comfortable composing on a word processor, most find revising and editing much easier on it. One can alter, insert, or delete just by pressing a few keys, thus eliminating the need to rewrite or re-type. Furthermore, since the revision process is less burdensome, students are more likely to revise as often as is necessary to end up with the best paper possible. For these reasons, many freshman English courses require the use of a word processor.
    Computers are also useful in the context of language courses, where they are used to drill students in basic skills. Software programs reinforce ESL (English as a Second Language) instruction, as well as instruction in French, German, Spanish, and other languages. By using these programs on a regular basis, students can improve their proficiency in a language while proceeding at their own pace.
    Science students take advantage of computers in many ways. Using computer graphic capabilities, for example, botany students can represent and analyze different plant growth patterns. Medical students can learn to interpret computerized images of internal body structures. Physics students can complete complex calculations far more quickly than they could without the use of computer.
    Similarly, business and accounting students find that computer spreadsheet programs are all but indispensable to many aspects of their work, while students pursuing careers in graphic arts, marketing, and public relations find that knowledge of computer graphic is important. Education majors learn to develop grading systems using computers, while social science students use computers for analyzing and graphically displacing their research results.
    It is no wonder, then, that educators support the purchase and use of microcomputers by students. A versatile tool, the computer can help students learn. And that is, after all, the reason for going to college.1.  The word "literacy" in paragraph 1 means ______.